U.S. Engagement and Disengagement in the Middle East: Paradox and Perceptions
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U.S. Engagement and Disengagement in the Middle East: Paradox and Perceptions Brandon Friedman Introduction A recurring theme in the recent literature on international politics has been the change in the "structure" of the "international system" over the last decade (2011-2019). This idea is most commonly articulated as a shift from what was a post-Cold War "unipolar" system dominated by the United States to a "multipolar" system, with several "Great Powers," including China, Russia, and the U.S., but dominated by no one. This line of reasoning is based on theoretical literature that assumes that polarity is a central fact of international politics. The concept of polarity is based on ranking the relative power of countries, which is determined by assessing the relative distribution of military and economic power among states. The idea of a multipolar world has become part of the conventional wisdom; so much so, in fact, that within months of each other Russian President Vladimir Putin (in May 2014) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (in November 2014) each declared the world to be "multipolar." Despite the widespread acceptance of this concept in assessing the structure of power in international politics, recent scholarship has raised the question of whether aggregate material power is the best way to gauge historical change in the structure of international politics.1 Nevertheless, it is not the purpose of this essay to challenge the conventional wisdom that a new multipolar international system has emerged. Instead, this essay will explain what has led Middle East actors to perceive the U.S. as withdrawing or disengaging from the region. My argument is that since 2009, American leaders have elected to minimize security commitments in the region and restrict strategic engagements, leaving a "power vacuum" that Russia and perhaps China have sought to fill in different but perhaps complementary ways. The widespread perception that has emerged in the Middle East over the last decade was not that the U.S.'s relative economic or military power has declined, but rather the attitudes of American leaders about how the U.S. should use its military power to uphold its security commitments in the Middle East have distinctly changed. In the Middle East, since 2011, there has been a continuous drum beat of discussion around the question of whether the U.S. was withdrawing or disengaging from the region, despite the fact that former Obama officials, like Derek Chollet, have referred to these perceptions as a "myth".2 1 Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in the Twenty-First Century," International Security, 40:3 (Winter 2015/16), 7–53. 2 Derek Chollet, Jake Sullivan, Dimitri Simes, and Mary Beth Long, "U.S. Commitments in the Middle East: Advice to the Trump Administration," Middle East Policy 24:1 (Spring 2017), 5-34, here 6. 1 WORKING PAPER OCTOBER 2019 Indeed, as Micah Zenko has shown, in terms of facts on the ground, the notion of a physical withdrawal or disengagement seems hard square with reality. The U.S. maintains large troop deployments in the Middle East (approximately 54,000 in September 2017); it also has multiple air bases, and conducts regular naval port visits. Moreover, there are bilateral security programs across the region that include weapons sales, training, advice, logistical support, and intelligence sharing and support.3 The belief that the U.S. was disengaging from the region was rooted in the U.S. discourse during the Obama administration, which was actively debating how the U.S. should "rightsize" its role in the region.4 This has contributed to a recurring refrain that was heard across the region between 2011 and 2018, which was that the U.S. was retreating from the Middle East.5 Paradoxically, this claim was persistently expressed despite the fact that the U.S. played a major role in the military intervention that toppled Muammar al-Qaddafi's regime in Libya in 2011, and despite U.S.'s role in assembling and leading a military coalition of more than 70 countries to destroy the State of the Islamic Caliphate (IS) between 2014 and 2017 [and most recently resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi]. This dissonance between the actual scope and size of the U.S.’s presence and commitments in the region, and the widespread perception throughout the region that the U.S. is withdrawing or disengaging from the Middle East is the theme of this essay. A Brief History of Great Power Competition and the Modern Middle East The modern period of the Middle East has, for better or worse, been defined by its encounter and engagement with the West.6 Throughout the nineteenth century, the survival of the Ottoman Empire was vital to machinations of European power politics.7 The “Eastern Question” and the Anglo-Russian “Great Game” in West Asia meant that the entire area from the Bosporus to India 3 Micah Zenko, “U.S. Military Policy in the Middle East: An Appraisal,” Chatham House: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, October 2018. See, also: Thomas Juneau, "U.S. Power in the Middle East: Not Declining," Middle East Policy 21:2 (June 2014), 40-52. 4 Marc Lynch, "Obama and the Middle East: Rightsizing the U.S. Role," Foreign Affairs 94:5 (Sept./Oct. 2015); Robert E. Hunter, "US Interests and the Use of Force in the Middle East," The International Spectator, 50:4 (2015), 95-112; Shadi Hamid, "Islamism, the Arab Spring, and the Failure of America's Do-Nothing Policy in the Middle East," The Atlantic, October 9, 2015; Gawdat Bahgat and Robert Sharp, "Prospects for a New Strategic Orientation in the Middle East," Mediterranean Quarterly 25:3(2014), 27-39. 5 Michael Young, "Obama's America prefers to ignore the Middle East," The National, June 30, 2011; Abdullah al Shayji, "In search of Obama's Middle East legacy," GulfNews.com, February 17, 2013; Amir Taheri, "The Middle East and Obama's redirection," aSharq al-Awsat, October 4, 2013; Hisham Melham, "Obama's Tarnished Legacy in the Middle East," Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Winter 2016; Basheer Nafi, "US stance on Syria reflects regional retreat," Middle East Eye, February 8, 2016; Efraim Inbar, "U.S. Mideast Retreat a Boon for Moscow and Tehran," Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2016, 1-13; Nawaf Obaid, "The Salman Doctrine: the Saudi reply to Obama's weakness," The National Interest, March 30, 2016; Shalom Lipner, "How Obama and Trump left a vacuum in the Middle East," Politico, November 25, 2017. 6 Dror Zeevi, “Back to Napoleon? Thoughts on the Beginning of the Modern Era in the Middle East,” Mediterranean Historical Review 19:1 (2004), 73-94. 7 Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). 2 WORKING PAPER OCTOBER 2019 was the setting for a European competition for power, influence, and resources.8 The Great Game led to an intense competition for colonial possessions across territories that included the historic Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires, subordinating parts of them to the tutelage of the West. And, paradoxically, in seeking to preserve the Ottoman Empire, the Eastern Question led the European powers to become its largest stakeholder. World War I shattered the Ottoman Empire and led the victorious European powers to establish Mandates that shaped the modern state system in the Middle East in line with their core interests.9 Nationalist elites in the region, inspired by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s support for national self-determination, were frustrated by the Mandates, which they viewed as nothing more than colonialism in disguise.10 While the Mandates were indeed an instrument for the European powers to safeguard their core political and economic interests in the Middle East, they also created modern state institutions and led to the West’s preserving its stake in the region.11 Ultimately, much of the historiography about the nature of the relationship between the great powers and region engaged the theses of Malcolm Yapp and L. Carl Brown that suggested the regional powers were far more adept at manipulating great power interests for their own gain than had been previously acknowledged.12 In the aftermath of World War II, the northern provinces of Iran became the site of the first Cold War confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.13 And while Iran’s oil nationalization, the Baghdad Pact, and the Suez Canal crisis led to nationalist struggles against European 8 For example, see: M.S. Anderson; The Eastern Question 1774-1923 (London: Macmillan, 1966); Edward Ingram, In Defence of British India: Great Britain in the Middle East, 1775-1842 (Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1984). 9 Elie Kedourie, England and the Middle East: The Destruction of the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1921 (London: Bowes & Bowes, 1956); Elie Kedourie, The Anglo-Arab Labyrinth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); Sean McMeekin, The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908-1923 (New York: Penguin Books, 2016); Michael A. Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 10 D.K. Fieldhouse, Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914-1958 (Oxford University Press, 2006); Peter Sluglett, “An improvement on colonialism? The ‘A’ mandates and their legacy in the Middle East,” International Affairs 90:2 (March 2014), 413-427. 11 Uriel Dann, ed., The Great Powers in the Middle East, 1919-1939 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988); Meir Zamir, The Secret Anglo-French War in the Middle East (London: Routledge, 2015); James Barr, Setting the Desert on Fire: T.